


Breakdown

by sahiya



Series: 10,000 Wars [6]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Established Relationship, Estrangement, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Stanley Cup Playoffs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-12-23 09:56:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11987433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sahiya/pseuds/sahiya
Summary: Dylan's team knocks Connor's team out of the playoffs, and it takes Dylan a little while to realize they have a serious problem.





	Breakdown

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ElleCC](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElleCC/gifts).



> This is set in my 10,000 Wars universe, which is principally a Kane/Toews 'verse, though this story does not mention either of them, and it's set 10 years before the main story in that universe. You can read it as a standalone if you know that Connor got himself traded to the SJ Sharks after three kind of terrible years in Edmonton. This story covers the first playoffs after that – so, 2019. Dylan is with the 'Yotes. 
> 
> This was written for ElleCC for the prompt "estrangement" in my [2017 Fuck Trump H/C BINGO Fundraiser](http://sahiya.dreamwidth.org/736914.html). 
> 
> Many thanks to Miri_Thompson for beta reading!

In hindsight, Dylan was pissed at himself for not realizing sooner that he and Connor had a serious problem. 

In his defense, it was the playoffs, and the first year either of them had felt like their teams actually had a chance. It was also the first year they’d played each other, but it wasn’t like they’d never faced off before. Dylan didn’t think it would be a problem. 

And it wasn’t – for him. Because the Coyotes won. It took seven games and double OT, but the Coyotes managed to take out the Sharks to advance to round two. 

The locker room in Phoenix was jubilant afterward. For all the celebrating going on, anyone who’d walked in would’ve thought they’d won the Stanley Cup, not just made it out of the first round. It was awesome, for sure, but also...weird. Weird to be so happy and not have Connor with him, and even weirder to be so happy and know that Connor was probably really fucking pissed right now. 

When Dylan finally got to his phone, he had tons of messages waiting for him from friends and family. He scrolled through, looking for Connor’s. 

One word: _Congrats_.

Dylan hesitated, then wrote back. _Tough luck, but you guys played really well. And you’ve only been in SJ for a year. Want to hang out tomorrow?_

He showered, changed, and was on his way to his car, distractedly texting his mom back, when Connor texted him again. _Can’t. Charter’s leaving early._

_Stay and go back commercial?_ Dylan suggested. 

_Need a couple days. Sorry._

Ouch. Understandable but ouch. Still, Dylan wasn’t gonna be a dick about it. He’d been there often enough himself to know how much it sucked to lose. Besides, the Coyotes had won; he could be gracious. _OK. I get that. Let me know when you’re ready, maybe you can come out for some of the next round._

Connor didn’t answer. 

***

If Dylan hadn’t been in the middle of a playoff crunch, he probably would’ve realized something was up way sooner than he did. But Connor had asked for space, and Dylan had a _lot_ going on, and it wasn’t until they headed to Anaheim after a win and a loss at home that Dylan realized he’d had the same last text sitting in his conversation with Connor for almost a week. 

Dylan wasn’t exactly a relationship expert, but he was pretty well-versed in Connor McDavid, and he knew that was bad. Like, _bad_. 

“Fuck, I am such a shitty boyfriend,” he said aloud, even though there was no one in his Anaheim hotel room to hear him. It wasn’t like he talked much about his relationship with the other guys on the team. A lot of them knew, but only in the abstract. 

He skipped straight past texting and Facetimed Connor. Connor didn’t pick up, but a few seconds later he got a message. _Out to dinner with my parents. Call you later?_

_Sure. Just realized we hadn’t talked in awhile._

Connor didn’t respond, but Dylan decided that wasn’t that weird, if he was out with his parents. He texted with a couple of the guys, made plans to go out for dinner at a steakhouse one of them had heard about, then texted Ryan to be a jerk about being in the playoffs when he wasn’t. But not _too_ much of a jerk, because payback was a bitch, and who knew where he’d be at this time next year?

Two hours crept by that way. Dylan was just starting to worry when his phone rang with a Facetime call. He definitely did not leap for it, except for how he definitely did. 

“Hey, Davo,” he said, when Connor’s face appeared. 

“Hey,” Connor said, sounding tired. “Sorry for the radio silence, things have been – everything’s been kind of a lot, lately.”

“It’s okay,” Dylan said. “Are things better now?”

“Sort of,” Connor sighed. “I’m sorry, I’m being a total dick. It sounded like your game last night went really well.”

Dylan didn’t say anything for a few seconds. The idea that Connor might not have watched his games had never crossed his mind. Connor _always_ watched his games. Occasionally, Dylan wished he wasn’t quite so dedicated, since he didn’t really need to analyze every single turnover or failed backcheck. “You didn’t watch?” he finally managed. 

Connor dropped his gaze to somewhere off to the side of the phone. “No. It’s just – like I said, it’s been a lot, there were all these pieces about –”

“I saw them.” _Maybe the problem was never the Edmonton Oilers. Maybe McDavid just isn’t a closer._ “You know not to read your own press, Davo.”

“I know. My mom called it ‘self-flagellation.’”

“Yeah, well, your mom’s pretty smart.”

Connor shrugged. “Anyway, it’s just – I feel like everyone just expected me to walk into San Jose and work miracles, and I didn’t. And I – I’m glad for you, that you’re in the playoffs and doing well. I am.”

“You trying to convince me or yourself there?” Dylan asked. “Careful, you might sprain something.”

Connor looked back at the camera. “Dylan...”

“No, don’t,” Dylan said. He’d gone from zero to pissed off in about three seconds. “Look, I am sorry you lost, all right?”

“No, you’re not,” Connor replied sharply. “You’re not sorry we lost, because _you fucking won_.”

“Yeah, we did!” Dylan snapped. “And now you’re punishing me for it!” 

“I’m not –”

“Yes, you fucking are! You froze me out, you’re not watching my games – what the hell do you call it?”

Connor stared at him, then slowly shook his head. “You have no fucking idea what it’s like.”

“Oh my God, don’t do this.”

“No, you have _no idea_ the expectations I deal with –”

“And you have no idea what it’s like to be ‘that guy who played with Connor McDavid in Erie’!” Dylan snapped. “Jesus Christ, Connor. You know I love you, like _stupid_ love you, but this is the first time in our entire careers that I feel like I have the chance to be something other than that.”

Connor took a deep breath. “You know what? I can’t do this. I thought I could, but I can’t.”

Dylan’s blood went ice cold. “What?” he managed. 

“I can’t talk to you right now.” Connor’s eyes narrowed, and Dylan suddenly knew, with the certainty of long familiarity, that Connor was about to say something absolutely vicious. “Call me when you get knocked out.”

_Yep._ There it was. 

Before Dylan could even begin to think how to respond, Connor disconnected. Dylan found himself holding a phone with a blank screen. 

It was all he could do not to throw it across the room. And then it was all he could do not to sit down and cry. For a second there, he’d thought Connor was breaking up with him. _Jesus_ , Connor knew how to twist the goddamn knife. 

He grabbed his phone and typed out, _Go to hell_ , then sent it before he could stop himself. 

God-fucking-dammit, he couldn’t even get drunk. Fuck the playoffs, anyway. 

***

They made it to the conference final. 

Dylan hadn’t really thought they would. He’d said all the right things to the press, but he was pretty sure the Ducks had their number. It took seven games, again, but they won. Holy shit, they _won_.

He thought for sure that Connor would text him when they won. Connor might be mad at him, but he’d still care about Dylan’s hockey. Or so Dylan had thought. 

He’d cried for the first time that night. Sat down on the kitchen floor with a “celebratory” beer in-hand and cried. It was stupid, but he was so mad at Connor for ruining this for him, and so afraid that they’d never sort things out. This was what they’d both been afraid of, back when they’d gotten drafted. Connor was the one who had said, “We’re going to do this, and screw everything else.”

Fuck him, Dylan thought. Fuck Connor for making him think it was possible for them to get through this and then just walking away when it got hard because he couldn’t handle losing. 

He was too tired and sore to sit on the floor for long. Fourteen games of playoff hockey were taking their toll. After awhile, he pulled himself to his feet, dumped the beer down the drain, and went to bed. 

He didn’t hear from Connor when they dropped the first two games in St. Louis, or when they pulled out the W on home ice. He didn’t hear from him when they went down again in their second game at home, putting them down 3-1 against the Blues. He hoped against hope for a good luck text before Game 5, but there was none. 

They lost. 

Dylan had known they were outmatched by the Blues, who’d stormed the much more difficult Central Division to get there. He’d known but he’d hoped. 

It didn’t feel worth it, he thought, sitting in the dead-silent visitors’ locker room afterward. If it cost him his relationship with Connor, it _wasn’t_ worth it. 

They flew home. Did press, cleaned out their lockers. And Dylan still hadn’t heard from Connor. He went online that night to look at flights to San Jose but went to bed without buying anything. He just couldn’t know, not really, and he wasn’t sure he could bring himself to take the risk. Not right now, not when he was raw from the playoff loss. 

Connor had told him to call when they got knocked out, and now that it’d happened, Dylan really didn’t want to call him at all. He knew that was his ego talking, but it’d been a shitty thing to say. 

He tossed and turned for hours before finally falling asleep. 

***

He woke to his phone buzzing on his nightstand. He’d put it on Do Not Disturb, but he’d long ago set it to let Connor’s calls through anytime. He fumbled for it, heart pounding. “Davo?” he mumbled. 

“Hey, sorry to wake you,” Connor said. “I, um. I’m on your front porch. Can you let me in?”

“What?” Dylan asked dumbly. 

“I’m here. If you – if you don’t mind, could you let me in?”

“You’re here? How?”

Connor laughed softly. “I drove all night from San Jose. If you’re not so mad you never want to see me again, come let me in.”

Dylan threw his phone aside and ran down the stairs, yanking the door open to see Connor, duffel bag thrown over his shoulder. He looked up from his phone and smiled, sheepish and tired and the best thing Dylan had ever seen in his life. “Hi, Dylan.”

“You fucking asshole,” Dylan said, and threw his arms around Connor’s neck. 

Connor let the duffel bag slide down to the ground and wrapped his arms around Dylan, squeezing him hard. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m really pissed at you.”

“I know, you should be. I was a dick.”

Dylan buried his face in Connor’s neck, clinging to him. “I missed you.”

“I missed you, too. Can we, uh, take this inside?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Dylan wouldn’t let go of Connor, but he did pull away long enough to drag him inside and shut the door. Then he pushed Connor against the door and kissed him. 

Muscles in Dylan’s body that had been tense and aching for weeks suddenly let go. It was like his entire body breathed a sigh of relief. Connor groaned softly into his mouth, and his hands found Dylan’s waist. He pressed a hand into the small of Dylan’s back where he’d pulled a muscle in game three of the conference final – and how the hell had Connor known _that_? – and Dylan melted into him. 

Finally, Dylan pulled away to rest his forehead against Connors. “You could’ve just called.”

“No,” Connor said softly. “I needed to show up for this.” He swallowed. “Dylan, I’m just –”

“Don’t,” Dylan said tiredly. “We’ll talk about it in the morning. Let’s just sleep right now.”

***

They slept late the next morning. It wasn’t like either of them had anywhere to be. It was almost noon when they finally got up, because the food Dylan had ordered on his phone had arrived. They ate pancakes and eggs and bacon at his kitchen island, feet pressed against each other’s on the rungs of the stools, and talked about everything except hockey. 

Dylan kind of thought they might not talk about it. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it. On the one hand...he kind of just wanted to move on. It’d all been pretty awful, but if he was going to dump Connor for being a competitive asshole, he’d have done it years ago. On the other hand, he really didn’t want to go through this again next year. 

He hadn’t made up his mind yet by the time they finished eating. He got up to put the cutlery in the dishwasher and turned around to find Connor _right there_. “Whoa,” he said, startled, just as Connor shoved him up against the cabinets and dropped to his knees. 

“Whoa,” Dylan said again, because this, he somehow hadn’t expected. Connor looked up at him through his lashes, and Dylan felt his breath quicken. He was suddenly half-hard in his pants, where he hadn’t been at all hard a few minutes ago. It wasn’t super comfortable – the handle of one of the cabinets was digging into his lower back – but it was suddenly a little hard to remember why that mattered. 

“I’m sorry,” Connor said. “I’m a really terrible loser, but I should have been able to get over that for you. I watched the entire conference final, and I wished I could be there with you. I was furious with myself. Forgive me?”

Dylan swallowed, trying to wet a suddenly dry throat. “I’m not sure this is playing fair.”

Connor smiled. “It’s fairer than I could be,” he said, undoing Dylan’s fly and tugging his pants down around his thighs. “I could’ve waited till you were all come-dumb and flooded with feel-good hormones.”

Dylan supposed he had a point. “I don’t want it to happen again. This might not be the last time we face off in the playoffs, and we can’t – we can’t implode every time. I can’t handle it.”

Connor slid his hands up Dylan’s thighs. “Next time, we’ll be prepared. We can talk about it ahead of time. I – I didn’t know how mad I’d be.”

“I should’ve. You’re you. You’ve always hated losing.” Dylan sank his fingers into Connor’s hair. 

“It’s off-brand,” Connor agreed. He grimaced. “Though maybe not after Edmonton.”

“Hey,” Dylan said softly, sliding his hand around to cup Connor’s jaw. “You’ll get there someday. We both will.”

“Promise?” Connor said.

“Promise,” Dylan replied. 

Connor leaned his head against Dylan’s thigh. They stayed like that, with Dylan quietly petting Connor’s hair, for long minutes. Dylan didn’t know what Connor was thinking, exactly, but he suspected it was some of the same overwhelming relief that he was feeling. 

But also, his bare ass was pressed up against his kitchen cabinets.

“So, uh. You gonna get this show on the road, or what?” Dylan asked. “Because we could also move it to the bedroom.”

Connor laughed quietly. “I’m good if you’re good.”

“I’m good,” Dylan said. “I’m great, in fact. I’m –” He cut off with a gasp as Connor licked a stripe up the length of his dick and curled his tongue around the head. Dylan found himself reaching out to steady himself against the cabinets with one hand, while the other one stayed on Connor’s head. 

Dylan had thought more than once that Connor gave head the same way he played hockey: with every ounce of concentration dedicated to it. When he was in, he was all in. And he was even more all in than usual this morning, as though he was trying to prove something. 

Dylan would’ve been more worried about that if it hadn’t felt so fucking good. 

It was hot and wet and _dirty_ , and Dylan kept looking down to catch Connor looking back at him. He was regretting not having let Connor move them to the bedroom when he’d offered, because his knees were threatening not to hold him up anymore. He felt like his spine was liquefying, and he kept having to brace himself against the cabinets. 

“Connor,” was all he managed, before his knees gave out entirely. Connor barely broke rhythm, just reached out and braced his thighs as he fell, then laid him out on the kitchen floor and got right back to work. 

Almost all of Dylan’s sexual experiences had been with Connor. There’d be a couple of girls early on, before he’d realized he wasn’t all that into women, but once he and Connor had gotten together, there’d been no looking back. They’d been each other’s every significant first. Once in awhile, Dylan wondered what sex might be like with someone else. 

But the truth was that Connor knew him so well, knew just where to lick and bite, knew just how hard to grip him, knew just when to slip his fingers back and press behind his balls. He was quiet by nature during sex, but Connor knew how to get him loud, knew how to knock down his inhibitions one by one, and more importantly, Dylan trusted him enough to let him. 

It was hard to imagine having that with anyone else. It was hard to imagine _being_ with anyone else. And there had been a few days, where Dylan had wondered if this was it, if he’d lost this for good. 

Connor kept him on the edge for ages, it felt like. Dylan’s thighs were trembling, and he was covered all over in sweat. He was gasping, desperate for it, but he couldn’t quite get there. Not until Connor slid a slicked up finger into him, and then Dylan was gone. 

Connor draped himself over him, pressing him down – into the cold tile of the kitchen floor, which, okay, wasn’t great, but Dylan was too out of his head to really care. “Love you,” Connor said, kissing him first on the chin and then on the mouth. “Are we good?”

“Love you, too.” Dylan summoned the coordination to wrap one arm around Connor’s back. “And yeah, we’re good. We just – if we face off again in the playoffs, we have to figure out ahead of time how to deal with it. I don’t know what that’ll mean, or if it’ll even come up again, but I was totally blindsided, and it just – it sucked.”

Connor nodded. “For me, too.” He sighed softly, breath ghosting across Dylan’s collarbone. “You want to move to the couch or the bed or something?”

“Not yet,” Dylan said, and closed his eyes. “This is perfect.”

_Fin._


End file.
